Windows 8 License Sales Top 60 Million

Despite analyst misgivings, Microsoft exec says at CES new operating system is on pace to match early Windows 7 sales.

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A Microsoft official said the company has sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses since launching the touch-friendly operating system last year.

"I would like to announce that we have reached the 60-million license mark with Windows 8," said Tami Reller, CFO of Microsoft's Windows division. Reller, speaking Tuesday at the JP Morgan Tech Forum at CES Las Vegas, said the number puts early Win8 sales on pace with those of Windows 7, which debuted in October 2009.

It's "roughly in line with where we would have been with Windows 7," said Reller. "So, we feel good about what we have been able to accomplish with the ecosystem. Still much more, so much more opportunity ahead, but certainly looking back we're pleased with what we were able to accomplish with the project, and what we were able to accomplish with the ecosystem heading into launch, and in the first selling season."

Windows 8 became available to enterprises last summer, and launched to consumers on Oct. 26. Reller said the 60 million includes licenses sold to PC and tablet makers, and upgrade licenses. She did not provide a more specific breakdown of the numbers.

Some market watchers have taken a less rosy view of Windows 8's launch performance. In late November, Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White said that his checks of the Asian supply chain revealed that Windows 8 was off to a slow start. "Much lower than ... PC makers originally expected a few months ago," said White, in a report.

Deutsche Bank recently cut its estimate for fourth-quarter PC sales, due to "lackluster initial uptake of Windows 8," according to analyst Chris Whitmore.

Reller is one of two Microsoft execs overseeing the company's Windows group in the wake of the sudden departure of unit president Steven Sinofsky in November. The other is Julie Larson-Green, head of Windows software and hardware engineering.

Reller said Sinofsky's exit would not impact Windows 8's future success. "There is an incredibly deep bench in Windows, not only at the senior leadership level, but across the organization." She added that Sinofksy's departure was "a day of distraction and then people went back to the project that they're working on, which we won't talk about today."

Microsoft shares were flat, at $26.63, in morning trading Wednesday. The company is expected to report earnings on Jan. 24.

Microsoft could sell 60 million licenses for an operating system called "PoopOnaStick" because they are a monopoly and because their "partners" are forced to buy in bulk just in case they manage to sell any devices running "PoopOnaStock". But said license sales bear no relation to actual number of devices sold, nor how many of said sold devices may have been "downgraded" to an earlier and better OS than "PoopOnaStick". My guess, though, is that after the Windows 8 (aka PoopOnaStick) debacle has come to complete fruition in the next 6 months, vendors won't be quite so eager to buy bulk licenses on Microsoft's next wonder OS, "PoopOnaStick II".

The 60 million figure includes all those licenses from PC and OEM manufacturers for systems yet to be built, plus all those systems sitting on a store or warehouse shelf, plus all those licenses that are never used because the systems are upgraded to W7 right away. Using more realistic measures the adoption rate of W8 is dismal and will stay like that.

Where is the start menu? How can I shut down my computer with a click of my mouse? How to playback DVD? How to open, view, read, review, print PDF documents with Microsoft PDF Reader metro app? PDF files have to be printed in batch with 3rd-party solutions like PDF2Printer from win8pdf.com/pdf-to-printer.htm... and they have to be read without switching to Metro with 3rd-party software like PDF Reader for Windows 8 from pdfeight.com/reader.html. Start button has to be recovered with software like ViStart from lee-soft.com/vistart/. To shut down Windows 8 with a click, you have to create a Command Prompt script like shutdown -s -t 0. To play DVD, you have to download the freeware VLC Player from videolan.org/vlc/index.html. I should not have upgraded my DELL to Windows 8.